Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance knows very well that the biggest cuts were to provincial transfer payments, and that they also dipped substantially into the UI fund. This was primarily how the minister refilled his coffers. We know this. He cannot deny it. Furthermore,
those living in poverty in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada know it. They know it each day that the government has hurt them, that it went after them cruelly.
Will the Minister of Finance admit that the best short term response to child poverty, family violence and school dropouts would be to re-establish the provincial transfer payments for social programs that it was too quick to cut, and will he promise to do so in his next budget and to inform government members that the path they have set out on is a very bad one?